Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Well that was the question on my mind anyway, before settling on the Ambient Weather station WS-1001. Like most savy online shoppers these days, I read as much information as I could about personal weather stations before making this purchase, however there was not a lot of info out there on the WS-1001, just the previous WS-1000 version. I've been wanting a weather station for several years now, but just haven't needed one badly enough to bite the bullet and justify getting one. I had pretty much had my sights set previously on a Davis station, but between the exorbitant price, some mediocre reviews and bad customer service reputation, I thought I had better keep looking. After much searching and reading, I decided on the WS-1001 for a number of reasons and I'll try and touch on some of them. Also after having the unit up and running now for over a month, I think I can make a knowledgable review of the product that you may find helpful. There were several contributing factors that made the Ambient Weather station more attractive then the Davis station, number one probably being the most obvious, the price between the two. Second, the Ambient Weather instrument cluster has two additional sensors included that Davis charges extra for on its units, a UV Sensor and a Solar Radiation Sensor. My thought was you can never have too much information. To be completely truthful, my real justification for getting a weather station in the first place was to monitor rainfall and cold temperatures in the winter for a recently planted grove of fruit trees. All the other data is really just a bonus for me. The only other instruments I have to compare the accuracy of the WS-1001 is a thermometer and humidity sensor. The thermometers seem to be right on, but the humidity gauge I have indoors has about a ten digit discrepancy between the two. Given that all the other data I have compared with weather stations in my area to mine via the Weather Underground, I would assume the Ambient stations reading is correct, but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. If and when you order the WS-1001, it comes with the batteries for the outdoor unit. That unit uses three AA Alkaline rechargeable batteries, yes you did read that right Alkaline rechargeables. I didn't even know there was such a thing, figured they would be NiMh or NiCad, but nope they say Alkaline on them. You will have to supply your own two AAA batteries for the indoor sensor. There is a low indoor battery indicator on the display unit, I used NiMh rechargeables and of course the display immediately shows the indoor battery as being low which is to be expected, By the way the indoor sensor provides temp, humidity and the barometric pressure reading. The indoor sensor is the only barometric sensor, the outdoor sensor does not have one. Mounting the outdoor array is the only real physical setup required. The unit comes with two separate stainless steel short mounts. One is crimped on the end to fit inside another pipe, the other one is straight and I found it slips perfectly over a piece of 1" EMT (Electrical Metallic Tubing) commonly referred to as electrical conduit. I did have to drill a hole in the stainless mount and EMT to put a set screw in so there would be no chance of it slipping. It also comes with 2 U-bolts that you can use for other mounting solutions. I made my station freestanding on a 10' section of EMT. Some reviewers did not care for the build quality of the outdoor array, my personal feeling is its adequate. My only real gripe so far with the array is bird droppings. The location of the built in level interferes with the ability to easily add a bird deterrent. With the anemometer and wind vane on top of the unit it does help keep birds off the unit, but with no wind, the birds will land on the unit. I have had to clear the rain gauge once already. Also I'm concerned a bird deterrent might possibly shade the UV and Radiation Sensors. The weather vane does seem to swing around a lot, I'm thinking it's because of its short length. I do have the array level, so I know that's not the case. The unit transmits its data every 16 seconds, I believe the Davis is every 2.5 seconds. I think wind speed would be about the only measurement to benefit from that close of an interval. The outdoor array has a published line of sight rating of 300 feet, transmitting its data in the 433 MHz freq. I found the unit to exceed my range expectations. There are two metal shipping containers, a wood building, a concrete block wall and a refrigerator in between the array and the display unit which is above an LED TV, with 244 measured feet in between the two and it works much to my amazement. The indoor display unit is very nice, however I do wish the location the information is displayed was customizable by the user. But after a while you seem to get used to it, so it's not a huge deal. It does not have a built in battery, so the unit is tethered to an outlet. I suppose if you really wanted to, you could use an external battery of your own making if you wanted to cut the cord; the display operates on 5V DC. The published wireless range of the transmitter is recommended to keep it within 5-20 feet of the display. Mine is about 10 feet away and no connection issues, Many early reviews complained about loosing the graph data if the power was interrupted and that was true then, but not now. I recommend when you get the unit update the firmware to the latest version. I didn't do this and sure enough when the power is disconnected you would loose the graphed display data, so I connected the display to a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply), commonly referred to as a battery backup. Went along like this for a while and finally got around to updating the firmware, but in doing so I lost al, the recorded data on the unit I had up to that point. I believe I could have exported it before I did the firmware update, but I didn't and it wasn't that big of a deal to me anyway. Just a word to the wise, update the firmware as soon as you get the unit and you won't have to worry about loosing any graph data if the power is disconnected. When the unit comes back on the data is restored to the graph. There are a lot of customizable display settings including the ability to change the calibration of the sensors if you need to. You can control the backlight, there is an option to automatically adjust the backlight setting or you can preset it. Also you have the ability to have the display shut off between set hours, this is a nice feature. If the display is off, just press any button on the display and it lights back up and then turns back off after several seconds. If you enter your latitude and longitude, the unit will display the sunrise and sunset times for your location as well as the moon phase. Setting the display up really isn't that hard. The menu is OK for what it is, yes a touch screen would make the whole unit much nicer, but certainly more expensive too. I did set it up and used it with Weather Underground for just a day to see that it did in fact work. I really personally don't need that feature, but it's there. I would probably have left it connected, but I don't know what the data packet size is that is being sent and with it sending data every 16 seconds it does add up. If your ISP data is not unlimited, think twice about using this with the Underground, but if you don't mind sending all that data to the Internet, there are apps that you can access your stations public information with that are pretty darn nice and you can customize the display layout on your mobile device. Also you can have your mobile device display barometric data in millibars, the ambient display does not give you that option. The display is in Hg, but you do have the ability to display it as either relative or absolute pressure. It should be noted that once you connect the display to your wifi connection, there is no option to disconnect the wireless connection. I had to change the encryption key on my router to sever the connection. Even changing the key within the Ambient display settings to an improper key would not sever the wifi connection, including a power cycle. This I thought was kind of crappy. The WS-1001 has a lot of nice features and they company does seem to support the product with firmware updates which is a plus. Is the unit comparable to a Davis in accuracy, I believe it is. There is a Davis station a few miles away from me that reports almost identical observations as my Ambient Weather station. So far all in all, I'm a pretty satisfied customer, but time will tell.